May 7, 2007 issue - Henry Waxman looks like your accountant, but he acts more like a dog with a bone—the hard bone of truth. This short, bald, mustached California congressman is digging up what really happened inside the U.S. government during the early years of the new century.

Last week, for instance, Waxman's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform heard startling testimony about how the Army lied repeatedly to protect its image, covered up those lies, then lied again.

Instead of depressing me, the hearings left me strangely exhilarated. Historians will likely see the 2006 midterm election returns as indispensable to their work.

Without a change in party control, we would never have a chance to get to the bottom of what has happened to this country.

Now, if only Alter and all the other purveyors of Conventional Wisdom just STFU long enough for the hearings to bring to light all the things SOME OF US knew were happening, without getting all Broderific on us.